I’m glad that I did so because my expectations were exceeded sky-high. What a lovely group of people, most of them all under thirty and already key professionals in some heavy corporations! Not to mention fun & open minded. Twenty-six amazing ladies and gentlemen that managed to change my entire perception regarding the industry they are working in and the environment they are coming from; changed it in a very positive way.

I’ve had the opportunity to meet in person a few people I’ve worked with in the past and quite a few that I will surely be working with in the near future. We talked business and we discussed trends and projects, the informal setting was ideal for this.

The location was also amazing, too bad for the nasty weather, but we made up for it quite easily. What exactly happened there is a tale to be remembered by those who attended and my sincere hope is that this sort of gathering will happen again very soon. Kudos to the organizers and a big thank you to all the exceptional people that kept us company during the past week-end.

This was an informal team-building. And these were the great folks of IAA – YP.

But as I took a break I read Mike Arrington’s post regarding MySpace. Immediately I remembered Dick Brass’ article in the New York Times and I thought to myself: What the heck is MySpace and Microsoft doing? And Google for that matter. Are these fast becoming me too companies, simple runner-ups? Are Facebook, Apple, Amazon and Twitter the only companies driving innovation these days?

MySpace just pulled the plug on what was probably their last lifeline. Microsoft is eaten from the inside by personal rivalries. Google is constantly playing catch-up with little or no success. The first two are killing innovation and the last one seems it forgot where it all started from.

Do you know what the problem with these three is? Passion. The lack of it. When was the last time any of these three made you go wow? (other than the obvious that we take for granted)

When was the last time you felt that someone on the other end actually cared?

It’s quite sad to see them go down this road. Because I respect Google and Microsoft and I use their products & services every day. I can’t say the same for MySpace since (unfortunately) I find it obsolete.

Maybe these companies got too big too fast for their own good. But killing innovation and lacking passion at the same time is a murderous combination.

And that’s no excuse, because we rely on them and we need to feel good about them once again.

Just the other day a dear collaborator of mine called me early in the morning to ask me to come down to a business networking event. I’ve heard of the event a few days in advance but I wasn’t quite sure I can make it. well, to be honest I didn’t even think it will benefit me that much, considering it was slightly out of my area of immediate interest.

Boy was I wrong. I agreed to come since I quite value this person and a refusal on my part would’ve been interpreted as lack of interest. So I went downtown, arrived at the coffee house, ordered a big latte & lemonade and waited. Quite a few familiar faces around, friends of mine as well. This was a pretty familiar setting, so conversations went on smoothly, presentations were quite interesting.

But the most amazing thing happened (you might not find this amazing, but it’s the first time that it happened to me – and hopefully not the last). I was having a discussion about best practices in online brand management with one of my fellow online entrepreneurs at which point a young lady asked if she could listen in. We all agreed and went on about the topic. Few minutes into the discussion two other ladies sat down and acknowledged that our discussion is quite interesting and they would like to know more.

Turn out one of them is dealing with the marketing department of a cosmetic manufacturer, another a PM for a management consulting company and the last one a hostel owner.  Quite a varied audience, yet we all managed to discuss the topic in terms everyone could understand.

Matter of fact is that during this particular event I closed a deal, negotiated another and followed back on two others the next day.

Now what I’ve learned is that the further you go from your vertical the higher the demand gets for your particular skill set.

But the most important lesson you should learn is that you no longer can say that you’ll make it. You have to make it, you owe it to yourself.

Now please go on and read the comments at the original location of the video. I’m quite sure you’ll learn something new today.

I’ll be auctioned off at this event myself. The highest bidder will have the chance to tap into my mind during a private dinner hosted by Irish Music & Pub at a later date (you can ask me anything you want, I’ll even do one hour of free consulting if you wish), so if you’re in and around Cluj-Napoca tomorrow evening make sure you don’t miss the event. We have well over a hundred confirmed guests at this event, but most likely we’ll have more than 200 people on site.

We live-streamed the event through Qik and I remember being quite excited. As I’m always eager to learn about interesting local projects I’ve asked for their business cards and I was to follow up with them quite soon.

I’ve followed them closely for the past year and when I first decided to do a few startup showcases they were the first to pop into mind. So I sat down with Alex and had a little chat with him regarding WIP; what follows is the result of this.

WIP is short for Work In Progress. The company was founded back in 2004 by Alex Bejan and Auras Dumanovschi, in the south-eastern town of Galati, Romania. Now the company employs four outstanding people; apart from the co-founders they have some fresh talent: Claudiu Antohi and Mihai Dumitrache. Back in the early days (2005) they developed todom.ro, an online multiplayer strategy game which was nominated as the best Romanian project back then. These guy were only 17 at the time, so this was quite an achievement.

I’ve asked them why the name Work In Progress. Alex acknowledged it’s indeed a strange name, but truthfully answered:

Progress is part of our work. Also, you can look at this name from another point of view, maybe we are always fully booked and so we get some good rates

Fast forward to more current times. WIP is now working on three main in-house projects:

• twip.me – A communication gateway between IM clients/SMS & Twitter.
• paipto.com – It’s the technology behind twip.me; basically a communication gateway for developing apps that interact over IM and SMS
• mudjo.com – A status and location-aware social network (co-founded with Dan Berte)

Their main focus at this point is developing Paip and build a few iPhone, iPad and Android applications on top of it.

The company is fully self-sustained. They do freelance and outsourced work to sustain WIP, but are in negotiations for their first round of seed funding, which apparently will happen quite soon.

I recommend keeping an eye on them, WIP is one of those startups that have all the potential to make it big. they have at least one product with amazing potential.

Fortunately none of this happened in regards to the projects I was about to announce today. It’s just the timing that’s not quite right. Instead of rushing into it I’ve decided to let each project play out its own timing. Not to worry, it will happen very soon for each of them.

But I won’t let you leave with empty hands and I’ll give you a small piece of news: We’ve got new talent over at (INC)³ and we’re also taking our business offline & abroad.

Thank you for your patience & understanding. We love you for that.

That’s exactly what’s going to happen if Daniel is not aided to undergo immediate transplant. You see, he’s been diagnosed with leukemia 4 months ago. And next month he’s going to be a father for the first time, an event that should be the most important of his life. But in his case the most important thing can happen is for him to be allowed to live, to hold his newborn child in his arms and see him grow up.

The transplant operations’ costs are in excess of 120,000 euros and so far more than a quarter of the amount has been raised. The Romanian online community joined forces in an unprecedented campaign in terms of reach and involvement and as part of this Andrei, Gabriel, Ruben and yours truly are organizing the second edition of the WWW Party. This will not be your typical social gathering but rather a charity fundraiser; we’ll have a few artists performing live on stage, we’ll auction off quite a few donated objects and the main events of the evening will be the auctioning of 10 know members of the local online community, both ladies and gentlemen.

The venue is Irish Music & Pub in Cluj-Napoca and the event will take place on the 12th of February from 8 PM. If you’re using Foursquare you can find the location here so please check-in at the event if you’re attending.

If you can’t make it to the charity fundraiser please consider helping Daniel with a donation. More details about how you can do this here. If you’re in Romania you can use the bank accounts and if you’re outside the country please use Paypal.

Thank you for allowing Daniel to live. His unborn child will thank you too.

What I noticed that most people forget is that a startup or a project needs to be kept simple and really stick to the basics and really answer the following questions (if you know them and you have a correct answer, you’re clearly on the right track) :

• Does it solve a problem? (if it’s not you really should be stopping here and move on to the next idea)
• Does it do something better than anyone else? (if not, why should I go with you and not with someone else?)
• Would more than a thousand people use it? Would more than a hundred thousand people use it? (if you answered no to the first one it better be damn expensive)
• How does it make money? (if you answered advertising-only, you sort of lost me already)
• Are you in it for the thrill or for the money? Do you see yourself making a living out of it in under a year? (if you answered yes, yes and yes you might have just have a winner)

These are my five basic questions. The answers to the first question pretty much points out if you have a golden goose. The answer to the fourth decides if you just turned it into an ugly duckling. But whatever these answers are keep in mind that the most important asset you need is passion. If you have passion you can stick to the basics and come up with the next big thing.

After a few years you’ll start feeling tired with no apparent reason, your concentration will break more often and your attention span will be shorter and shorter. This is particularly dangerous since it will eventually turn into severe depressions, lack of motivation and a continuous strand of procrastination.

The good news though is that there are a few things that you can do to get back on track or better yet, avoid the unpleasant effects altogether: nature walks, listening to music, polyphasic sleep or even downshifting. I’ve tried pretty much everything and eventually settled for what best works for me: meditation. More precisely, a form of Zen meditation.

I remember one time I was having a really tight deadline and I was sitting in front of the computer for hours and couldn’t get started, my fingers were just touching the keys on the keyboard yet I couldn’t write a single word in hours. I’ve shut down everything on my laptop except for a single webpage and my word editor. Still no luck and I was getting more and more impatient, couldn’t concentrate because I was getting even more stressed. I tried taking a nap and after waking up the same nasty feeling stopped me from getting any work done. So then I remembered that years ago, back when I was starting to practice wushu -  right before a seriously frightening match – I had a nervous breakdown and my master and I had a short session of tai chi. We meditated for about half an hour and after feeling more alive & motivated I managed to get into that match with my chin up. I lost the match, but I got out of it only with one serious injury, which was quite an achievement for me.

Back to my deadline: I said to myself that there’s nothing to lose so I’ve started to meditate, even though I only knew the basics. Matter of fact is that after half an hour I found the strength and motivation to get things done and meet the deadline with a smile on my face. Ever since that deadline I meditate almost daily. It’s amazing and almost unreal how clear everything gets once you properly clear your head.

Why is meditation the ideal form of relaxation? First of all it allows you to find balance and order while allowing your mind to freely wonder around. Second, it fully regenerates your work energy and replenishes your motivational reserves. But most importantly, meditation is the  simplest path to a clear and healthy mind.

I can’t say how or if it will work for you as well, but you can give it a shot. In today’s business and work environment you really need not so much a of a refuge but rather a weapon to deal with the surrounding environment.

Did you try meditation before? Are you using it or an alternate method? Let me know in the comments.